


Three Storms

by The_Plaid_Slytherin



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Gen, POV Stannis, Pre-A Game of Thrones, Storms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-21 09:45:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9542279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/pseuds/The_Plaid_Slytherin
Summary: Three storms Stannis and Renly weathered together.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [garnet_dragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/garnet_dragon/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day! I love these two and I hope you like this!

The storm hadn't stopped. The storm that had wrecked the _Windproud_ and taken the lives of Lord Steffen and Lady Cassana was still raging, the sea taking out its fury on the rocks below the castle. Robert was out in the courtyard, taking his grief and rage out on a practice dummy. Maester Cressen and Uncle Harbert had all failed to get him to come in, and Stannis was disinclined to try himself.

He was wandering the castle, remembering all the times he'd done just the same with his father, listening to all his stories of the castle's past and their family's history. There was no one to continue that legacy now, no one except Stannis and Robert. How much knowledge and advice yet to be given had died with Lord Steffen? Stannis didn't even want to think about it. He just wanted to forget what he'd witnessed not two days before.

The sound of laughter pulled him from his thoughts. It was coming from the nursery, naturally, and Stannis realized he'd given hardly a thought to Renly. He opened the door.

Renly was sitting up in his crib, the floor strewn with toys. He grinned at Stannis before deliberately tossing the last one onto the rug. Stannis immediately began to gather them up. 

"What would you have done if I hadn't come in?" he asked, dumping his armload back into the crib.

Renly laughed delightedly and tossed a soft doll to the floor. Stannis picked it up, only for a horse to land next to him while he was still bent over.

Stannis sighed. "You don't even know what's happened." He picked Renly up and carried him to the window. "Mother and Father aren't coming back."

Renly squirmed against him and grabbed his doublet laces. Why couldn't he ever be _still_? He remembered Mother saying that one day he would appreciate Renly as a little brother, not just as a squirmy sandbag. Perhaps that needed to start now. 

"They're gone," he said, "but I'll be here. And Robert." He paused. " _I'll_ be here." 

"Uh." Renly reached up, trying to stick his fingers in Stannis' mouth. Stannis pushed the hand away, and it latched on to his fingers. 

"One day, I'll tell you all about them." Stannis pressed his face to the window; he couldn't distinguish the rocks from the sea and sky. Everything outside was pure black. A sheet of driving rain lashed the window.

"Down," Renly demanded. Stannis set him down and he took off, shrieking with laughter. 

Stannis gave chase, to Renly's delight. "Come on, you're supposed to be in bed." Renly would stop, letting Stannis get just close enough before taking off again, clearly thinking this the grandest game. 

"Now—" Stannis said, at last scooping him up. Renly howled with glee. "You have to go back to bed before Nurse finds us, all right?"

Renly shoved himself against Stannis' chest, and he set him down quickly before he could drop him.

"Now sleep, will you?" Stannis tucked him in, even though he didn't look remotely sleepy. "Good night."

There was another clap of thunder and Renly shook his head. "No."

"Yes." 

"No." Renly sat up, his lower lip trembling. Stannis considered running for Nurse, but that would only incriminate him in the crime of keeping Renly up. Besides, he didn't think he wanted to go to bed himself. "All right." He sighed and once more picked Renly up. "What do you want to play?"

"Bocks!" 

Stannis sighed heavily and set Renly on the floor. Before long, he found himself absorbed in building towers for Renly to knock over. At least for some moments, it took his mind off graver matters.

**

"Stannis?" The door opened without a knock and Stannis didn't look up from his desk.

"You're supposed to be in bed." He dipped his quill in ink, dashed off a signature, and transferred the paper to another pile. He didn't know why he was still doing paperwork; it was pointless, blockaded as they were, with no contact with the outside world.

"I can't sleep. It's too loud."

Stannis turned, giving Renly a skeptical look. "We've been under siege for six months and it storms every other day. This cannot be new to you."

Renly stared back at him, blue eyes wide, and Stannis was struck suddenly by how thin he'd become. He'd had some baby fat to burn through before the siege, and Stannis' mind had been so focused on what little work remained to him that he hadn't noticed. 

"Come here," he said. Renly shuffled forward, looking hollow-cheeked in the flickering light from Stannis' candle. Stannis patted his head. "Would you like to see what I'm working on?"

Renly didn't answer; he simply clambered up onto Stannis' knee, forcing him to suppress a wince. "What's that?"

Stannis tried to push away the grain store records but Renly's eyes fell on them first, with a beginning reader's keen eagerness to spot words he knew.

"Do we have any food left?" 

"We do." He gave in to the impulse and slipped a reassuring arm around Renly's thin shoulders. He could not bring himself to say _no_. 

Renly's head listed onto Stannis' shoulder. _He is too exhausted to sleep_ , Stannis realized. _As am I._ He leaned back in his desk chair, absently rubbing his several days' growth of beard. He did not know how much time had passed, or whether they had fallen asleep. He often found himself drifting in and out of focus when he had nothing to occupy his mind. For a time, he simply lost himself in the wind howling about the tower. 

"Stannis?"

"Yes?"

"Will you tell me a story?"

He gave his customary response when pestered with this question: "I don't know any good stories."

Renly made a dissatisfied noise and shifted in his lap. "You _must_. Robert always has good stories."

"I'm not Robert." It was a struggle to keep his annoyance in check. Renly meant no harm by the comparison, but it stung all the same.

"I know," Renly said. "He's not here. He's rescuing Lady Lyanna and you're keeping us safe."

"Attempting to."

"They've not come in yet," Renly said, as if this was all the evidence necessary. "And they won't." 

Stannis rather envied his child's surety. "Aye, and we might starve." He immediately regretted his own morbidness. 

"Then we'll be with Mother and Father?" He sounded unsure, and Stannis remembered the Septon had been among the first to die. Renly's religious education was falling behind.

He debated what to say to this—ought he try to comfort his brother, or be honest with him? 

"I don't know," he said.

"Oh." 

For a long while, there was no sound but the unending rain. At least that would drive the besiegers back to their tents, and Stannis thought with pride how at least the stormlands would always be on the side of House Baratheon. 

"What will we do?" Renly asked.

"We will remain," Stannis said. He stood suddenly, shifting Renly in his arms, knowing it shouldn't have been so easy. "Come see." He brought Renly to the window and they looked out together. It was a dark night, but the lightning illuminated the men patrolling the battlements. "They will stand with us to their last, and then if only we remain, so shall it be." He sighed. "But I won't let it come to that. I will find a way."

Renly looked up at him through his hair. "Swear?"

"I swear." He brushed Renly's hair back from his face. "And when you are a man grown, you will return the favor when you fight by my side, yes?"

"I swear." 

Stannis smiled at the determination in his small voice. "I know." He turned from the window and went over to his bed, setting Renly down upon it. "Maybe you can sleep if I'm here."

"Maybe." Renly crawled under the covers and Stannis eyed his desk. He could get some more work done if Renly fell asleep. 

"I still want a story," Renly said.

Stannis turned back to him. "What sort of story?" 

"A true one."

Stannis stretched out on the bed next to him and kicked off his boots, searching his memory for a true story. "I shall tell you of the Storm Kings." 

Slowly, he recited all the history he knew from the first of the Storm Kings, until Renly was fast asleep. Stannis' own lids felt very heavy. Perhaps he ought to take a bit of a rest before finishing his work. With his last ounce of wakefulness, he leaned over and blew out the candle, plunging them into darkness, lit only by the occasional lightning flash. 

In the end, Stannis did not sleep, but he was able to rest. 

**

The rain did not fall on King's Landing the way it fell on Storm's End. It felt strange to Stannis, too many sunny days. Robert had taken to it immediately, and when he turned sixteen and was offered a place on the council, so did Renly. He tried not to let that make his resentment smolder, but it was hard when Renly didn't even have pride in his native stormlands. It was like he couldn't have gotten away from Storm's End fast enough, so taken was he by the glint of the capital.

There was a storm rolling in now, though, and Stannis set his work aside, drawn to the battlements like he was some nights at home.

Home.

He still could not think of Dragonstone as his home, although it certainly satisfied his desire for wind and rain.

He opened the door, finding comfort in the lightning-split sky, the choppy seas, the crackle in the air of the oncoming storm. The rain had yet to hit and Stannis stood in the doorway, breathing deep, savoring the rising wind. 

"Ho, Stannis!" a voice behind him cried. "What brings you up here?"

Stannis turned. It was Renly. He still wasn't quite used to his little brother being taller than him. "I wanted to watch the storm," he answered.

He waited for Renly to make some jape at his expense, but Renly nodded. "Me, too."

Stannis eyed him suspiciously, but Renly simply stood by him, arms crossed as he watched the waves. 

"I didn't know you came up here," he said at last.

"Sometimes," Stannis allowed.

"It reminds me of home." Renly leaned back against the stone wall, looking relaxed. "Don't you miss it?"

"Miss what?"

"Home, of course! Storm's End."

Stannis grunted. "It is no longer my home."

"Doesn't mean you're not welcome there." Renly pushed lazily off from the wall and stepped out onto the battlement. "You should come back with me next time. I should like to spend time with you there." 

Stannis watched Renly silently as the wind caught his hair. He looked more like a stormlord than Stannis ever would; he saw their father and the way he'd always pictured all the great storm kings. At that moment, the sky opened up. To Stannis' great surprise, Renly flung his arms out and threw his head back, as though he welcomed being drenched. 

"What are you doing?" Stannis heard himself ask before realizing he no longer had the right to call Renly to him. 

"Come on, Stannis!" Renly called. "It is in your very blood. Don't be afraid of getting a bit wet."

Stannis resented the assumption that he was _afraid_ of getting wet, especially when it came from a fool who stood out in the rain.

"Come on," Renly said again. "No one's watching but me, and you don't have to maintain your reputation in front of me."

Still, Stannis hesitated. It would be a long, wet walk back to his quarters, it would require a bath and a change of clothes… 

Or perhaps his brother was right. For once.

He tried not to smile, but the fact that he was wasn't lost on Renly. Stannis braced himself for the teasing remark, but Renly said nothing. He only smiled knowingly as they stood in the rain together, the storm all around them.


End file.
